Chicago Pact Could Force Layoffs

Teachers in Chicago were back at work last week with a contract
agreement whose cost, district officials say, will force them to
dismiss more than 1,000 school employees.

Ending a walkout that kept nearly 450,000 students idle for 18
school days, the Chicago Teachers' Union voted Oct. 4 to accept a
two-year contract that provides for 4 percent annual pay raises. The
union originally sought a 15 percent increase over two years.

Also as a part of the pact, 37 of the district's most crowded
elementary schools will receive additional funds for instructional
programs and personnel. In 100 other elementary schools that have been
identified as lagging behind district averages in academic achievement,
classes will be reduced by two students each.

To fund the pay raises, the district says it will lay off 1,300
employees, 600 of whom will be teachers. In addition, budgets for
magnet-school, mathematics and reading, and special-education programs
will be cut, a spokesman for the board said.

John Kotsakis, the union's administrative director, said the
provisions to decrease class sizes make the teacher layoffs unlikely.
He also said that although members were pleased with class-reduction
measures, they would have liked a bigger salary increase.

Boston Hires Drivers

In Boston, school-bus drivers continued their strike against the
companies that hold the city's student-transportation contracts.

The Boston School Department began accepting applications for
substitute bus drivers on Oct. 5, the third measure in a three-step
plan adopted by the Boston School Committee to halt the strike and
restore transportation for 27,000 students. Eighty-one drivers have
been hired so far.

The school committee first offered binding arbitration, which the
union immediately rejected. As a second step, the parties moved into 48
hours of round-the-clock negotiations.

When a compromise failed to emerge from the negotiations, the
department moved into the third step last Monday--hiring its own bus
drivers. Superintendent of Schools Laval S. Wilson has said the measure
is the only long-term solution to ending bus strikes.

Since drivers hired by the city will be public employees, striking
will be illegal. The city has suffered from six driver strikes in 10
years.

When the bus drivers received dismissal notices from their companies
last Monday, they held an emergency meeting with union officials and
decided to reverse their decision against binding arbitration.

The school committee, in a special meeting last Wednesday night,
decided in a narrow 7-6 vote to offer to go into "conditional binding
arbitration."

Ian Forman, spokesman for the school department, said committee
members voted to enter binding arbitration on selected issues such as
wages, guaranteed minimum hours, health insurance, and pensions.

But the committee wants the union to accept the companies' Oct. 4
offer on all other issues, including work rules, a no-strike provision,
and management-rights provisions.

The union had not officially responded to the committee's offer late
last week, but Mr. Forman said there was some indication that union
leaders were going to reject the offer.

Mr. Forman said that of the 81 new drivers hired by the district, 25
are strikers who have crossed the picket line. School officials hope to
get buses rolling for special-needs students this week, he added.

School-committee members have made clear, Mr. Forman said, that this
is the last private contract drivers will have an opportunity to
negotiate. If a two-year contract settlement is reached, the department
will switch to public drivers at the end of that term.

Other Settlements

Teachers in Elizabeth, N.J., returned to work last week without a
contract, just hours before court-imposed sanctions would have cost
them their jobs.

Don Tarr, spokesman for the Elizabeth Education Association, said
both parties are in a fact-finding stage and an agreement could be
reached soon.

In the meantime, the Elizabeth Education Association and the New
Jersey Education Association have accumulated more than $2 billion in
fines imposed by Superior Court Judge Frederick C. Kentz when striking
teachers refused to return to work after being ordered to do so. (See
Education Week, Oct. 7, 1987.)

In addition to the union fines, individual teachers were fined two
days' pay for every day on strike, which means every teacher and
support-staff member will have to forfeit 30 days' pay for the 15-day
strike. Mr. Tarr said union representatives will appear in court within
two weeks in an effort to have the fines eliminated.

In Little Rock, Ark., teachers settled their strike after a week,
winning a 13 percent raise and re-opening schools for 26,000 students.
It was the first teacher strike in state history.

Teachers in Youngstown, Ohio, also reached a tentative agreement
last week in their three-week-old strike, allowing 15,500 students to
return to school.

Overall, 48 strikes have been reported this year, compared with 51
strikes at this time last year. But because of the size of the
districts in Chicago and Detroit, more teachers and students were
affected this year by strike activity. Four strikes remained unsettled
last week in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

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